One Day a Schoolboy, Next Day a ProBy GERALD ESKENAZIAugust 29, 1974
NEW YORK-Moses Malone became
the highest salaried teen-age athlete
in the United States today by choosing
a seven-year professional basketball
deal, with a potential value of $3 million,
instead of playing for the University
of Maryland. The 19-year-old from
Petersburg, Va., 6 feet 11 inches tall, was
acclaimed as the country's top high school
basketball star last season. Although he
posted only a C average throughout high
school, more than 300 colleges offered
him scholarships-about a quarter of all
the colleges in the United States that field
basketball teams.

In becoming the first player to go directly
from high school to pro basketball,
Malone was also offered a $120,000 scholarship
fund by the Utah Stars of the
American Basketball Association. He will
get $30,000 as a bonus for every year of college
he completes if he decides to attend
any college of his choice in the off season.

Young Malone's mother works as a
$100-a-week packer in a supermarket. She
said, "I put the price on the meat." The
price of basketball talent was the main
theme today during the Malone news conference,
held at the Royal Box of the
Americana Hotel. His mother, Mary, sat
quietly next to her 210-pound only child.
All questions of money were dismissed as
"personal" by his lawyer, Lee Fentress of
Washington, and by Jim Collier, the Stars'
president. They had been with Malone day
and night for the previous four days, interrupted
occasionally by Coach Lefty
Driesell, who left the Maryland campus to
try to persuade Malone to keep his commitment
to the school. Malone had agreed
to go to Maryland, where classes began
this week. Driesell is considered one of
the country's most persuasive recruiters.

However, the Stars drafted Malone last
spring, which meant they had the rights to
negotiate with him. Many observers
believed they had selected him as a publicity
stunt, since no player ever had been
asked to make the move directly to the
pro ranks. Collier, the club owner, conceded
he might face situations a pro club
never had to contend with before because
of Malone's age. "We've got a teen-ager on
our hands," he said. "We'll have to place
him with the right people on the club."

An increasing number of players,
including current stars such as Kobe
Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers and
Kevin Garnett of the Minnesota
Timberwolves, have followed Moses
Malone's precedent of going straight to
the pros from high school. In 1987, nine
collegiate underclassmen or high schoolers
declared for the N.B.A. draft. In 2002,
45 did.

Associated Press

Moses Malone of the Utah Stars making sure a tap-in had fallen against the New York Nets in October 1974. Two
months earlier he had become the first basketball player to jump straight from high school to the pros.Runners Up

1977: Lou Brock of the St. Louis Cardinals stole two bases against the San Diego
Padres at Jack Murphy Stadium, bringing his career total to 893 and breaking
the mark that Ty Cobb set 49 years before. Brock retired in 1979 with 938
stolen bases and is second all-time to Rickey Henderson (see May 1).

1920: John Kelly of the United States won a gold medal in the single sculls at the
Antwerp Olympics in Belgium, narrowly beating the great British rower Jack
Beresford. Kelly, the father of Grace Kelly, the actress and later princess of
Monaco, won gold in the double sculls with Paul Costello 30 minutes later.

1965: Casey Stengel, 75, who led the Yankees to 10 pennants and seven World
Series titles between 1949 and 1960, retired as manager of the Mets for
health reasons after a 56-year career in baseball. He was an outfielder for the
Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants, among other teams, early in the
century.